Presently, telephony service billing is conducted periodically. At the end of the billing period, the accumulated call data stored on telecommunications switches is downloaded to a facility that combines data for a subscriber and then compiles a summarized billing for the subscriber which is sent for payment.
Due to this accounting structure, a subscriber cannot access the billing information for an up-to-date or real-time billing summary. Such information is important to a subscriber, particularly with the advent of per-use charge features and for cellular service subscribers, to determine whether or not a budgetary limit is being exceeded. Under the present system, a user will not know whether a limit has been exceeded until receiving their services bill.
Therefore, a need exists for a telecommunications system billing administrator that can maintain a billing information data repository for real-time queries by a user when requested. Furthermore, a need exists for system that allows a real-time query in an expedient manner such that a user or subscriber need not wait an extended period to receive the information.